LONDON, Ont. — As witnesses go, Alexis Lane was in the short and sweet category, called to the stand as a courtesy Wednesday, in the midst of the much denser evidence being given by the lead forensic biologist, because Ms. Lane is about to leave on a trip.

She was probably done in less than 10 minutes, but to Michael Rafferty it was obviously the most compelling part of the day.

He, of course, is the accused in this trial, pleading not guilty to kidnapping, sexual assault causing bodily harm and first-degree murder in the April 8, 2009 death of Victoria (Tori) Stafford.

With the notable exception of the first day the saddest picture of the trial was displayed on all the monitors in the courtroom — this was a photo of the garbage bags containing the little girl’s remains, the bags poking out from the huge rock pile in which her body was hidden, and here Mr. Rafferty rather showily lifted his eyes skyward and refused to look at his monitor — he has been a remarkably stolid presence throughout.

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Only when reaching for his plastic cup of water and ice, as he does frequently, has he even approached anything like animation.

But from the moment Ms. Lane walked into the courtroom until the moment she left, Mr. Rafferty’s eyes followed her.

She is a pretty 30-year-old with long dark hair who first met the meaty fellow in the prisoner’s box when they were both in Grade 6 in Drayton, a village of about 1,800 northwest of Guelph, Ont.

Interestingly, Drayton is in Wellington County, as was much of the long search for Tori, as were her remains when finally discovered by that rock pile off a lane in the countryside just south of Mount Forest.

In any case, the school was small, and the two knew one another well. Mr. Rafferty was then living with an aunt and uncle there, Ms. Lane said, and though she went on to nearby Palmerston for high school, he didn’t, and she saw him there only once, when he came to the school from Toronto for a visit.

They re-connected, she said, in February of 2009, through the ubiquitous auspices of Facebook.

She was then working at an oil camp in northern Alberta, and would periodically fly home to Kitchener, and they met. For about a month and a half, she told Mr. Rafferty’s lawyer Dirk Derstine in cross-examination, they were romantically involved — they’d talk by text and cell and Facebook, and then meet whenever she was home. (She called such actual meetings “one-on-one visits.”)

She was in his unusual-looking car, a 2003 Honda Civic: It was blue with a black spray overcoat, she said, and the interior, including the dashboard, was painted white.

This is the car that was spotted by an alert OPP officer who spent hours poring over security footage from, among a variety of places, cameras near Tori’s school in Woodstock, just a little east of London. The eight-year-old was seen on the footage walking from the school with a woman, later identified as Terri-Lynne McClintic.

Two years ago, she ago pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in Tori’s death, admitted she lured Tori away, and implicated Mr. Rafferty by saying the abduction was his idea, that she took the little girl to him and that he raped her.

But also seen on the security tape was the car, noticeable because of the odd paint job, which extended to the tire rims, and a rear spoiler.

As Mr. Rafferty’s then-girlfriend — or more accurately, one of them, for Ms. McClintic also considered herself his girl — Ms. Lane was last in his car, she said, on March 23, or about two weeks before Tori disappeared.

But for the curious paint job, she said, it was normal inside, neat, with seats in the front and back.

By the time police first saw the car in May that year, this when they first went to interview him, the back seat had mysteriously disappeared — never, despite exhaustive efforts by police, to be found again.

This is a useful moment to mention the bottom lines of the other witnesses Wednesday, Jennifer McLean, the lead biologist from the Centre of Forensic Sciences on this case, and before her, Barbara Doupe, a hair-and-fibre expert.

Though their evidence was framed with the appropriate scientific care and caution, both made significant finds.

Ms. Doupe found, on Mr. Rafferty’s black pea jacket, two blonde hairs that she sent on for DNA testing, and that a tiny sliver of material taken from the rear floor of the car either came from the upholstery of a 2003 Honda just like Mr. Rafferty’s or from upholstery that was the same.

Ms. McLean testified that Tori’s blood was found inside the car — on the rear passenger door frame and on the bottom of a GoodLife Fitness bag, where it was mixed with what was deemed to be with near-certainty Mr. Rafferty’s blood.

The findings are significant not only because they indisputably place the little girl in the car, but also because they corroborate McClintic’s testimony to a startling degree.

She may have changed her story about who actually killed Tori — for almost three years she said it was Mr. Rafferty, then this year began claiming it was she who beat the child to death — but much of the detail she gave is supported by independent evidence.

The sliver of fabric that likely came from the back seat, for instance, fits McClintic’s claim that after the killing, as the two sped away, Mr. Rafferty had her cut out bloodstains from the rear seats.

Ms. McLean has yet to testify about the results, if any, of DNA tests on the two blonde hairs.

As for Ms. Lane, she said the relationship with Mr. Rafferty, who is now 31, ended on April 1, a week before Tori disappeared. She wasn’t asked why.

As she left the courtroom, Mr. Rafferty watched her closely and their eyes met just before she walked out the door.

He then bent over at the waist, and when he lifted his big head, his eyes were watery and he looked verklempt: Stolid no more.

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